By Kemi Kasumu, General Editor
“This is just the beginning, the actual price of rice will come down because we are expecting a bumper harvest this year. We have sat down with the millers and have agreed that we are going to work together for the interest of Nigerians. I think you have been buying a bag of rice at the cost of N18,000, but today the price is between N13,000 to N15,000, meaning that the price is coming down.”
The bulk of public cries of hunger by Nigerian food consumers will soon fade off as rice farmers, millers and processors say the price of a 50kg bag of rice will fall to N6,000 in the next few months.
Price of rice has been the centre of complaints over high cost of food.
But the Federal Government early this year set up a task force to work on market price control with a view to making life easy and better for Nigerians, which, The DEFENDER gathered, had worked time and again with stakeholders in the agricultural sector in ensuring that all hands were on deck to achieve the set goal.
This, as further manifested in the announcement by rice farmers association on Wednesday, had begun to pay off as prices of food items particularly rice and wheats were now reducing.
According to the association, the current market price of rice, which is about N15,000 per 50kg bag, will drop to between N6,000 and N7,000 in a couple of months, going by the bumper wet season harvest by rice farmers.
Following a meeting between rice farmers/processors and the Minister of Agriculture and Rural Development, Chief Audu Ogbeh, at the ministry’s headquarters, in Abuja, on Wednesday, the National President, Rice Farmers Association of Nigeria, Mr. Aminu Goronyo, told newsmen that operators had resolved to currently reduce price of rice to N13,000 per 50kg, while stressing that the price would further drop to N6,000 in a few months time.
His words: “This is just the beginning, the actual price of rice will come down because we are expecting a bumper harvest this year. We have sat down with the millers and have agreed that we are going to work together for the interest of Nigerians. I think you have been buying a bag of rice at the cost of N18,000, but today the price is between N13,000 to N15,000, meaning that the price is coming down.”
